Family Discovers They've Been Sharing Home With 50,000 Surprise Guests

A family was shocked when they discovered they were sharing their home with more than 50,000 bees.

Louise and Michael Dawe had noticed a strange dark liquid coming out from the outside wall of their Cambridge home.

“I tried to put my finger on the brick, but it didn’t have any taste,” Louise told CBC News, adding that she suspected the liquid could have been honey.

The Dawes said they’ve had bees before but nothing could have prepared them for what the exterminator would find once they knocked the wall down.

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Inside the walls of the house was a colony of bees, including a hive, a queen and some larvae, CBC News reported. The exterminator said the wall contained approximately 50,000 bees, and could have gone up to 80,000 by next month.

Although the bees mostly kept to themselves, the Dawes thought it was best to part ways with their newly discovered roommates. They enlisted the services of beekeeper Dave Schuit, owner of Saugeen Country Honey in Elmwood, to get the job done.

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Instead of killing the bees, Schuit relocated them to his farm.

“The strategy is to try to take the bees out in a healthy manner,” he explained to CBC News. “We’re trying to save the hive, save the queen and find it a new home out of this home.”

The trick was to keep the bees as calm as possible. First, the hive was saturated with smoke, putting the bees in a drowsy and non-aggressive state.

Next, the entire hive was doused with a liquid syrup that distracts the bees and causes them to groom themselves and one another.

Once the bees were calm and distracted, the people pulled away the house wall to access the giant hive.

The house wall was then replaced and sealed properly so that the Dawes don’t have any more unexpected guests.

The Dawes were relieved that Schuit was able to successfully remove the colony of bees from their home. According to Schuit, the wax from the honey would have eventually attracted moths and could have also become a fire hazard.